FINDING A WAY by Nicole Stacy
A DISTANT LAMP by Melinda Giordano I don’t like walking at night. The houses are blank. Shadows multiply and stray with a fey perversity. Plants turn into animals. Sidewalks become black rivers as I splash blindly forward. Street lights are weak and unreliable. Instead, I find that I look beyond their helplessness, years into the sky, into a distant lamp. Surrounded by a choir of stars, fierce and white, she is a remote comfort. The cold light of the moon travels through the currents of galaxies, the archeology of the air, all the way to me—walking home from work.
And if I could, I would reach up to pull that chilly jewel away from her velvet setting, from her dark bed. I would feel the smooth facets, the gentle orbit, in my hand. I would let the light that was born inside her escape through my fingers, embroidering my arms with lunar silhouettes. I would let her dreams and mythologies travel through my hair. Even as her unimpeachable loveliness watches me, she remains an aloof satellite, burning with a frosty purity. She is only a distant thought, and I continue to walk quickly. Yet each night I can’t help but feel—lightly, firmly—a pair of radiant hands on my shoulders, guiding me home. 11